EVERETT — After the serial theft of nine Pride flags from his home over two years, Doug Blay attached an electronic tracker to the cloth of the tenth.
On Monday morning, he woke up to find the rainbow flag was gone.
Everett police found the GPS tracker, but not the flag that cost $7 on Amazon.
“I have 11 more spares,” Blay said. “I can keep on going for a while.”
The Pride flag at the Everett home of Doug Blay and Tim Pfahl before it was stolen this week. This is the tenth Pride flag stolen from their yard over two years. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
He assisted officers in locating the device in a roadside blackberry bramble less than 2 miles away near Merrill Creek Parkway.
“They took a machete and were going through bushes and stuff, getting all scratched up, but they found it,” police spokesperson Ora Hamel said.
No suspects were in the area, she said.
Blay and Tim Pfahl, his husband of 25 years, live on a busy stretch of Mukilteo Boulevard near Harborview Park. The 30-foot flag pole stood near the road, about 300 feet from the house, with an American flag hanging above the Pride flag.
The Pride flag flies year-round, not just in June, which is Pride month. Around town and the nation, rainbow flags were displayed and there was a spate of thefts.
The couple was featured in a June story in The Daily Herald after their ninth Pride flag was stolen.
Doug Blay, left, and Tim Pfahl, right, at their home in Everett. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
“I’m not looking for revenge,” Blay said in June. “I’d rather promote understanding and for people to be accepting. I hope people will be nice to each other.”
After the story ran, Blay said neighbors and strangers responded with encouragement.
There were no suspects or damage in the nine previous thefts, and those flags were never recovered. Each time, Blay responded by putting up another Pride flag.
On Monday, the pole was ripped from the ground, breaking a 5-foot segment and the solar light at top.
“We’re thinking it could be a hate crime this time because of the destruction of property,” Hamel said. “The statute says they have to destroy some kind of property to make it a hate crime. That’s up to a prosecutor and a judge, but that’s how the report will be written.”
The American flag was not taken. It was left under the pole.
“Leaving the American flag on the ground only demonstrates a lack of respect for all humanity,” Blay said Monday.
By noon Monday, a shorter version of the pole was back standing and another Pride flag raised at the couple’s home.
They will take the flags down at night until a light is installed to illuminate the American flag properly during darkness. There are plans for a new, sturdier pole to take its place.
Tips can be directed to Everett police at tips@everettwa.gov or 425-257-8450.
Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterbrown.
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